


Best Friends Means

by thorsodinsn



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Related, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 03:35:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3275198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thorsodinsn/pseuds/thorsodinsn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s his fault; his heart drops to his stomach, hammers away until he feels sick. he should have known, should have seen, should have killed that fucking bastard before he could get a damn bead on any of them. That was his job, the promise he’d made, and he didn't do it." || Shane's internal monologue during events in Days Gone Bye. || Slight Shane/Rick || S1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Friends Means

It’s just a trickle at first, warm spurts streaking scarlet across the fallen sheriff’s chest. Then it’s a gush, pulsing and pooling beneath Shane’s hands as Rick sputters and gasps beneath him. Shane can feel Rick’s heartbeat hammering so hard against ribs they very well break. Rick’s hands grope and grab for him, fingers clutching at Shane’s shirt, his arms. His breath is ragged and wheezing and every struggled sputter is like a knife through his chest.

                _Stay with me, stay with me, stay awake—Fuck, Rick, don’t you fucking leave me_.

                He doesn’t know if any of his freight-train thoughts spring onto his tongue. They’re an endless, frantic loop in his brain; a constant pleading as he presses down hard and blood soaks through his gloves. He can barely hear the sirens wailing down the street, nor the worried chatter of the rookies hovering behind them. He’s too busy watching Rick, worrying over the color rushing from his cheeks, fretting over the sweat beading on his brow, vexing at the dazed look clouding his friend’s eyes.

                “You focus on me, man, c’mon. I’m with you, Rick, I got you. Stay with me, alright? Just hold on.”

                He doesn’t register the hands on him until he’s already been shoved away and then he’s looking at a crowd of florescent yellow shirts, a rush of EMTs converging over Rick and yelling things Shane doesn’t understand. His bloodied hands fall uselessly at his sides and he worries his lip as he strains to see over their heads. Rick isn’t moving. Shane’s heart skips a beat.

                _Don’t you fucking do this, Rick. Don’t you do this do me_.

                Someone grabs his shoulder and Shane’s eyes snap up. She’s young, barely out of high school, and her blonde hair is braided down her back. “Are you riding with him?” she asks. “You gotta tell me now, ‘cause we gotta go.”

                “Yes,” Shane says automatically. “Yeah, I’m goin’.”

                “Alright, then let’s head out.” Shane nods, following after the girl and the team carrying Rick on a stretcher. He pauses only for a moment, just enough time to tap Leon on the shoulder and tell him to follow the ambulance in the cruiser.

                The truck is cold inside, metallic and sterile and crowded with bodies all bustling about. Someone’s hanging an IV, someone’s cutting Rick’s shirt off, someone’s pressing their hands right where Shane’s had been. He can still feel Rick’s heart pounding under his palms. His gloves are still slick with Rick’s blood. Under the single bright light glowing overhead, Rick looks a grim mix of paper white and sickly gray.

                Someone calls out that something is dropping, that something else is high, and there’s a clatter of plastic bottles and tubes as more wires are attached, more needles prick skin, and Shane can hardly breathe as he watches his friend next to lifeless and still bleeding, stretched out and strapped down and oblivious to the whirlwind circling around him.

                “I-Is—Is he-“

                “Officer Walsh? That’s your name, yeah?” The blonde-haired girl is talking to him again, pointing at the nameplate he forgot was on his uniform. He swallows thickly, nods in the affirmative. “Officer Walsh, we’re gonna take good care of him, alright?” Her hand connects with his wrist, warm fingers offering a reassuring squeeze. Shane looks at her, meets those big blue eyes. His breath shudders and he nods.

 

* * *

 

 

                It’s his fault; his heart drops to his stomach, hammers away until he feels sick. Rick, a dead-weight in his trembling arms, slumbers on unaware of the gunshots ringing off the walls and the stamps of GI boots marching down the halls. Shane sets his body back down, one hand sliding along Rick’s arm to grasp his hand and squeeze.

                It’s all his _fucking_ fault; he should have known, should have seen, should have killed that fucking bastard before he could get a damn bead on _any_ of them. That was his job, the promise he’d made, and he didn’t fucking do it.

                He exhales, scrubbing his free hand over his face, the other still clinging desperately to Rick’s. He should be in that damn bed; not Rick—never Rick. Not the man with the little boy who lived life as though his father donned Superman’s cape every morning and the wife who warmed his bed and the house so picturesque it should get its own spread of Better Homes & Gardens. Not the man who hosted precinct barbecues and pinned his son’s report cards to the board beside his desk. Not Rick. _Not Rick_.

                “I’m sorry.” The words come out croaked and strained as Shane lays his head against the other’s chest, presses his ear as close as he can get and hopes against hope to hear that gentle thump. Nothing. “I’m sorry, Rick—I’m sorry.” He can’t stop saying it, can’t keep those words from spilling off his tongue.

                “I’ll take care of them. Rick, I promise you… I promise you I’m gonna keep them safe.” It’s the only thing he can do. A last promise. A final act of friendship, of partnership, of love. He can’t save him. It’s over, there’s nothing left he can do, but Lori and Carl are waiting at home and he knows that she’s pacing with the news on loop and Carl is poking his head out of the kitchen and asking when they’re going to see Dad and Lori is fretting and shaking her head and wringing her hands and neither of them know that Rick isn’t coming home.

Shane grabs Rick’s shoulder, gives a strong squeeze. “You don’t gotta worry about them, man. I’ll keep them safe.”


End file.
